75 years ago

Today I want to post something completely different. 75 years ago there was the biggest battle in history of humanity – the Battle of Stalingrad. A rough estimate is for 2 million of total military deaths, maybe a bit less. For 199 days of fighting it would be about 10,000 soldiers killed daily, i.e. if you take our total losses in Iraq since 2003 of 3,923 soldiers – back then that kind of casualties would happen from morning till noon of one day.

I think I saw about 50 different movies about WWII, but if you want to get a complete feeling about that war I would recommend to see “Enemy at the Gates“. No other movie I saw would give that much of understanding of that war, in my opinion.

Essentially the battle of Stalingrad was all about oil (the same Greenspan said about Iraq war – that’s oil, stupid). Germans tried to get access to oil fields of south of Russia and they failed. From that point the Nazis were doomed and the rest of the war was just finishing the inevitable.

Today I just want to say two things. First, I want to wish everyone that humanity stops fighting for resources. I understand that the war can happen when neighbors are trying to dispute some land, that happens all the time. But when a powerful country attacks someone to get its oil it’s outright disgusting. Are we not strong enough to just buy what we want? Why should we kill?

And second I want to celebrate the German soldier. It was so many flowers for the right side that I think we need to pay some respect to those who were sent to fight for the wrong side, and they were fighting like tigers. They were not criminals, they were just good soldiers.

Look at the casualties. I will list only those countries that were the most furious fighters, and I list only military deaths:

Axis side

Germany 5,533,000

Italy 301,400

Romania 300,000

Allies side

Soviet Union 10,700,000

Yugoslavia 446,000

USA 416,800

UK 382,600

France 212,000

Poland 160,000

It makes 5,930,000 for Axis and 12,316,000 for Allies. In other words, it took a life of two Allies soldiers to kill one German. I think the Germans were the real heroes! I’m paying my respect to both sides…

P.S. In the light of those numbers please recall the movie “Saving Private Ryan“. There a group of 15 American soldiers was fighting against the similar group of Germans and the fight was pretty much equal. Think a bit. You take American rookies who are at real war for the third day in their life against German commandos that were fighting non-stop for the previous 6 years and they can fight at equal foot! Total nonsense! In real life it would take 40 or 50 Americans to have an equal fight against 15 Germans. You can’t learn history on movies like that…

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20 Responses to “75 years ago”

“Think a bit. You take American rookies who are at real war for the third day in their life against German commandos that were fighting non-stop for the previous 6 years and they can fight at equal foot! Total nonsense! In real life it would take 40 or 50 Americans to have an equal fight against 15 Germans. You can’t learn history on movies like that…”

By the time the Allies hit the beaches of Normandy the Wehrmacht had already taken a battering in the East and it isn’t evident that they could field all that many soldiers who had been fighting for 6 years. A number of German units in Army Group B (defending northern France and the Low Countries were significantly depleted and/or made up of sub-standard or non-German troops (although the latter were commanded by German officers from units that had been disbanded folowing defeats on the Eastern front). The situation in the East was even worse, with many units operating at 50% of their complement. It was all downhill from then. By the time the Allies reached Berlin, the Germans were fielding the equivalent of their Boy Scouts…

FYI: Japan had lost about 1.75 Million during WW2 (excluding Civilian Losses)

“In real life it would take 40 or 50 Americans to have an equal fight against 15 Germans.”

I believe US losses versus Germany were near par, with the US probably with a slight edge. The bulk of the US kills was using airpower which was used decisively against the Germans. The US used its strategic bombers to decimate German front lines to mimimize US ground troop causulties. Only during the Italy Campaign did the Germans have a higher kill ration and that was because they Germans fought in entrenched positions in the Alps and the terrain provided the Germans with a substaintal advantage.

The German-Russia front was a true tragedy. The Russians endured huge losses, it was was really a pointless war. Both sides were lead by rutheless dictators (Hitler and Stalin), both of which should have never risen to power.

In the grand scheme, what really isn’t important which nation had the highest kill ratio, by the loss of about 60 million people (Miltary and Civilian) that occured during that period. 60 Million people who lost their lives and all there dreams and hopes lost forever.

If there is one lesson that can be taken from this is, is that groups of people should never consider themselves better than anyone else. Strong national pride leads to arrogance and aggressions towards outsiders. The second lesson is that the public should never become dependant on thier gov’t. Dependancy on gov’t services leads down the road of totaliarism.

“First, I want to wish everyone that humanity stops fighting for resources. I understand that the war can happen when neighbors are trying to dispute some land, that happens all the time. But when a powerful country attacks someone to get its oil it’s outright disgusting. Are we not strong enough to just buy what we want?”

Unfortunately, its likely to get far worse in the years to come. The problem is that as some point, countries are no longer able to just buy what they want. Consider that the one of the reason why Japan went to war is because they could not buy the resources they needed.

Ask them.
Not now. Ask them when they’re running out.
Ask them when there’s no heat and they’re cold.
Ask them when their engines stop.
Ask them when people who have never known hunger start going hungry.

Want to know something?
They won’t want us to ask them.
They’ll want us to get it for them.”

From the Movie “Three days of the Condor”

The bottom line, is that when they people can’t get gas to put into thier cars, heat their homes, and put food on the table, populations will almost unanimously demand that the gov’t go get it for them. Even if that means sending thier sons and daughters into harms way.

The Battle of Stalingrad took place in the winter of 1942/1943, meaning it was only 65 years ago.

Essentially the battle of Stalingrad was all about oil (the same Greenspan said about Iraq war – that’s oil, stupid).

It is true that in Hitler’s thinking the drive to the south toward the Caucuses (far south of Stalingrad) beginning in the summer of 1942 (an offensive which was, before the disastrous winter of 1942/1943, spectacularly successful in terms of territory overrun) was aimed at capturing Russian oil fields. But the attack on Stalingrad itself also held significant symbolic importance for Hitler — due to the name of the city.

Germany had significant military technological advantage in early years of WWII, especially against the Soviet Union. That explains more of the high kill/loss ratio than personal virtues of the German soldiers.

Would you say that in Vietnam or Iraq the American troops proved themselves to be much better soldiers than the opposite side?

Lastly, while not all German soldiers committed war crimes, many did, especially on the Eastern front, so any celebration of the German soldier without acknowledging of this fact is rather hypocritical

First about the movies….http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108211/ is definitely the best one about the Stalingrad fight. (another nice German movie about war is Das Boot http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081834/, I wish Americans could make such high quality war movies without their “superheroes”). The enemy at the gates is as commercial junk as Saving private Ryan, with their budgets looking gloriously, but the movie itself isn’t as good as it looks at the first sight as it contains many defects (you mentioned that in your comment of the Saving private Ryan movie).
I agree with eh on symbolics of the fight. For Germans it was more symbolic than oil-driven as if they wanted oil, they could easily go to the middle east to take it, Arabs were fighting British colonists there so they would easily cooperate with Germans.

I do not agree with guy, I think he simply didn’t get what you wanted to talk about.

High number of dead Russians is simply because they didn’t give a damn about the life – and they still don’t even nowadays in civil life, their motto was “Ye nas mnogo” = “there is plenty of us” meaning they sent without hesitation tens of guys with shovels against tanks and grenades, that is simply not attributable to German army qualities but to the willingness of Russians to win at all costs.
Then also even allies soldiers were not doing nice things to enemy soldiers and committed “crimes”, but that is simply war.Give a man power and he simply changes due to serotonin hormone influence. I mean the allies would be doing the same atrocities if they found themselves thanks to their governments on the attacking side…
Regarding the wars for resources….don’t forget why the first Gulf war began. There is the single biggest oilfield on borders of Iraq and Kuwait, the vast majority of it in Iraq. Iraq and Kuwait agreed at the end of 80s that Kuwait will pump million barrels per month (maybe in a year, I don’t remember exactly, sorry) as Kuwaitis agreed that the oilfied belongs to Iraq. It worked till US and UK pushed Kuwait to pump 10 instead of 3 simply not telling Iraq. But Iraq intelligence soon knew what is Kuwait doing and wanted him to stop it. But then US and UK told Kuwait not to be limited anymore by any quotes and Iraq then invaded Kuwait to take control of its own oilfield. The rest you probably know quite well. Maybe I am wrong on numbers/frequency, but the principle is like that.
Don’t ever forget that propaganda exists and is more powerful than ever, note that American media never lies but often simply doesn’t tell everything.

AS a Vietnam Vet, 1966-67, let me say that anybody on the field of battle are brave men and women. Folks enjoy military history and discussing every major battle that has ever been documented.
My own experience and hope for the future is that young men and women can have a productive economic life at home without ever having to experience modern warfare first hand and that our political agenda becomes more focused on what Ron Paul has pointed out, that its time to bring the troops home from the 137 countries that we now them stationed and develop a less aggressive defensive posture.

Anonymous, that was military losses. I count only people with a rifle.

There was another 20-25 mln of civilian losses in SU. That also includes guerilla forces, I guess, but at the same time military losses include soldiers without rifles. In the “enemy” movie you saw that – they give one rifle for two, they run together…

Though I would post a couple of YouTube links to while away the time, mostly about the Soviet Union:

The Battle At Kursk (in 3 parts)

Dance With Death (5 parts – Vietnam War – Russian television. The U.S. lost 2500 a/c in Vietnam. Soviet missiles were very effective.)

Dasvidanya Afghanistan! (Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan – they don’t look like the losers they are portrayed as in the west, but the U.S. got its missile revenge. They look pretty proud, I don’t think it was a loss of face to pull out. Now the U.S. is mired in it after supplying billions in war materiel to the mujahadeen and they came back and smashed the World Trade. Who won? The Soviets!)